Marvel Premiere

Marvel Premiere is a Marvel anthology comic title. It ran from April 1972 to August 1981 for 61 issues.

The title was originally intended to be a testing ground for new characters and the re-introduction of characters who no longer had
their own titles. After a final appearance as "Him" in Thor #165-166 (June-July 1969), writer and then Marvel editor-in-chief
Roy Thomas and penciler Gil Kane significantly revamped Him as the allegorical Messiah Adam Warlock in Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972)
(the character originally being called just Warlock by his creator The High Evolutionary in the first issue). The High Evolutionary,
a master of genetics, evolved Him to a more advanced state of being and rechristened the character Adam Warlock in Marvel Premiere #2
(May 1972). Thomas and
Kane collaborated on the costume, with the red tunic and golden lightning bolt as their homage to Fawcett Comics' 1940s-1950s
character Captain Marvel.

After this introduction, the title focused on a popular character who hadn't had his own title since 1969: the adventures of Doctor Strange
bega with issue #3 and ran through #14; he would get his own title within 3 months. The martial arts superhero Iron Fist
was introduced in issue #15, in an origin story written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gil Kane. Other, less successul, introductions
include the Legion of Monsters; the 3-D Man; and Woodgod, as well as the introduction of the Tolkienesque fantasy Weirdworld.

The title also featured the first appearance of the second Ant-Man (Scott Lang)
and the first comic book appearance of rock musician Alice Cooper. Another feature that would spin off into its own title was
Seeker 3000, but this only happened twenty years after its first appearance in Marvel Premiere #41 (1978), with a four-issue
miniseries published in 1998.

Later on in the book's run, Marvel Premiere was also used to finish stories of characters who had lost their own book or feature.
One example of this was the Man-Wolf two-parter in #45-46, which continued the story from Creatures on the Loose #37. Another was the
three-issue Black Panther series.

The British TV sci-fi character Doctor Who (as portrayed by Tom Baker) appeared in issues #57 through 60.